Tag Archives: term of art

Term of Art: Intransitive Verb

Posted on August 17, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Intransitive Verb: A verb that does not take a direct object. His nerve failed.”

Excerpted from: Strunk, William Jr., and E.B. White. The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition. New York: Longman, 2000.

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Term of Art: Syllogism

Posted on August 17, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Syllogism: (Greek “reckoning together”) Deduction, from two propositions containing three terms of which one appears in both, of a conclusion that is true if they are true. A stock example is: All men are mortal; Greeks are mortal; so all Greeks are mortal. ‘Men’ is the middle term. ‘Mortal,’ the second term in the conclusion, is the major term and the premise in which it occurs is the major premise. ‘Greeks’ is the minor term and its premise the minor premise.”

Excerpted from: Cuddon, J.A. The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. New York: Penguin, 1992.

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Term of Art: Anaphora

Posted on August 17, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Anaphora: The relation between a pronoun and another unit, in the same or in an earlier sentence, that supplies its referent. E.g. in Mary disguised herself, the reflexive herself is an anaphoric pronoun, related to an antecedent Mary: the person, that is, who is said to be disguised is the person that Mary has already referred to. Likewise, e.g. in conversation, across sentences boundaries. Thus if A asks ‘Where’s Mary’ and be says ‘She’s in the garden,’ she in the sentence B utters is to be understood as anaphoric to earlier Mary.

Thence of similar relations involving units other than pronouns: e.g. the idiot is anaphoric to John in I asked John but the idiot wouldn’t tell me; do so is anaphoric to help in I wanted to help but I couldn’t do so. Also, in a looser sense, of any relation in which something is understood in the light of what precedes it. E.g. in Her house is larger than mine, a meaning of mine, as ‘my house,’ would be supplied in part by her house.

…An anaphoric chain is formed by two or more successive unit, each linked anaphorically to the one preceding.”

Excerpted from: Matthews, P.H., ed. The Oxford Concise Dictionary of Linguistics. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.

 

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Historical Term: Appeasement

Posted on August 15, 2020 | Leave a comment

[As I have mentioned previously on this blog, several years ago some colleagues of mine found students struggled with the concept of appeasement as well as its manifestation as a historical process in the years before World War II. The passage below does a nice job of summarizing this complex series of events, and here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Munich Pact to complement it.]

“Appeasement Foreign policy based on the conciliation of the grievances of rival states, usually involving some sort of concession as an attempt to avoid conflict or war. The term is most often applied to the pre-World War II policy of Britain and France of attempting to satisfy the demands of Hitler with regard to Germany’s grievances over the Versailles settlement. The policy, based on agreements with Germany and Italy, is particularly associated with Neville Chamberlain’s premiership (1937-40). As a result of appeasement Germany was able to occupy the Rhineland, the Sudetenland areas of Czechoslovakia, and to achieve the Anschluss with Austria. The policy is held to have ended when Hitler broke the 1938 Munich agreement and occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia in March 1939.”

Excerpted from: Cook, Chris. Dictionary of Historical Terms. New York: Gramercy, 1998.

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Term of Art: Document-Based Questioning

Posted on August 15, 2020 | Leave a comment

“document-based questioning: A technique used both for instruction and for some state and national assessments that involves presenting students with historical documents and having them analyze and answer questions about them, either orally or in writing.”

Excerpted from: Ravitch, Diane. EdSpeak: A Glossary of Education Terms, Phrases, Buzzwords, and Jargon. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 2007.

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Term of Art: Infinitive/Split Infinitive

Posted on August 14, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Infinitive/Split Infinitive: In the present tense, a verb phrase consisting of to followed by the base form of the verb (to write). A split infinitive occurs when one or more words separate to and the verb (to boldly go).”

Excerpted from: Strunk, William Jr., and E.B. White. The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition. New York: Longman, 2000.

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Term of Art: Paradigm

Posted on August 14, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Paradigm: [From Greek paradeigma, a pattern, an example, a basis for comparison. Stress: ‘PA-ra-dime’]. In grammar, a set of all the (especially inflected) forms of a word (write, writes, wrote, writing, written), especially when used as a model for word forms in Latin and Greek (in which key words represent the patterns of numbered groups in nouns, adjectives, verbs, etc.) and to a lesser extent for such other languages as French and Spanish (principally for verbs). Their use is limited in English, because it is not a highly inflected language.”

Excerpted from: McArthur, Tom. The Oxford Concise Companion to the English Language. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

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Term of Art: Indirect Object

Posted on August 14, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Indirect Object: A noun or pronoun that indicates to whom or for whom, to what or for what the action of a transitive verb is performed. I asked her a question. Ed gave the door a kick.”

Excerpted from: Strunk, William Jr., and E.B. White. The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition. New York: Longman, 2000.

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Term of Art: Retrograde Amnesia

Posted on August 14, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Retrograde amnesia: Loss of memory for events or experiences before a traumatic event or incident that causes the amnesia. The memories are generally recovered gradually over time, starting with early memories, and the traumatic event itself is often, though not always, recalled eventually.”

Excerpted from: Colman, Andrew M., ed. Oxford Dictionary of Psychology. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.

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Term of Art: Independent Clause

Posted on August 13, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Independent Clause: A group of words with a subject and verb that can stand alone as a sentence. Raccoons steal food.”

Excerpted from: Strunk, William Jr., and E.B. White. The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition. New York: Longman, 2000.

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